The Prince Fielder Effect
| 13
|
It's no secret in baseball that batting directly before a slugger has its advantages. You see a lot better pitches because the pitchers are less willing to play around and risk the chance of putting a runner on for the slugger.
This is the part in baseball where being really good makes everyone around you better as well. And no spot in baseball this year has been more productive than the one directly in front of Prince Fielder.
Fielder himself is having an MVP type year, hitting 30 home runs and driving in 72 runs out of the No. 3 and No. 4 spots in the lineup. But the No. 2 and No. 3 spots, respectively, have been even more productive than Fielder himself.
On May 25, J.J. Hardy, who was at the time batting second and Fielder third in the Brewers lineup, had hit 15 home runs and driven in 43 runs with a .314 batting average, including a home run and two RBIs in the May 25th game against the San Diego Padres.
This was, not coincidently, the game Ryan Braun made his major league debut, batting second in front of Hardy and Fielder moving to the cleanup spot. They would play one more game in that order, and then be swapped with Hardy batting second and Braun batting third in front of Fielder.
Since that fateful day on May 26, Hardy has hit just three home runs and batted in 11 runs and watched his batting average fall from .308 to .275.
Conversely, Braun has put up stellar numbers during his rookie campaign. Through just 44 games, Braun has hit .347 with 14 homers, 38 runs batted in, 14 doubles, 39 runs scored and an OPS of 1.085. (If you're wondering, the projected 162 game total at Braun's current pace is 52 home runs, 140 RBIs, 52 doubles and 144 runs scored. Food for thought if you still think Hunter Pence deserves the Rookie of the Year Award more than Braun.)
Add Hardy's pre-May 26th total with Braun's post-May 26th total and you get 29 home runs and 81 runs batted in, or, to put it plainly for the purpose of this article, better numbers out of the spots directly before Prince Fielder than the numbers he himself has put up.
So is hitting in front of Fielder the best lineup spot in all of baseball? Who can say? But if Ryan Braun brings home the Rookie of the Year hardware at the end of the season, I'm sure his lineup placement had at least a little to do with it.
